Miloco

The Pool 2009 Refurbishment
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Summer 2009 is a big one in the life of The Pool, as we go hammer and tong over a month to build a brand new control room in our 'Extreme Live Tracking' room. Below is a day-by-day blog of events. Get stuck in...!

Sunday 21st June
Preparation day!! The troops were in on Sunday to ready The Pool for a manic month of refurbishment and building work. The studio's entire collection of gear was heaped and covered in tarpaulin, and we bid a fond farewell to the wall of band artwork...




Monday 22nd June
Day 1 of Refurb: Mickey, Kenney and the crew arrive. The garage shelves are deconstructed and moved forward to clear space for what will be the new control room. But first thing's first... it's hello sledge-hammer and bye-bye wall and door!




Tuesday 23rd June
Day 2 of Refurb: Mickey continued with the shelves, while Kenney took to the decaying spiral staircase with a hack-saw. Meanwhile the brickies began laying the foundations for a brand new control room. Oh yes, and an army of dustmites were probably descending on the site.




Wednesday 24th June
Day 3 of Refurb: The two Joe's were in early to tear down the old tape store, and the guys carried on building the floor for the new control room. Mickey had more shelves to build, and also mapped out plans for the new drum booth.




Thursday 25th June
Day 4 of Refurb: After finalising the dimensions on the drum booth, construction commenced! The floor of the new control room is now starting to look like the floor of a new control room, and some more wall was demolished to make way for the new studio entrance.




Monday 29th June
Day 8 of Refurb: we return to a new week and can now enjoy a rapidly progressing drum booth, which seems to have grown several feet high and wide from when we last checked on it. The control room floor is now just that, (without the carpet!!), and the entrance to the studio is starting to look fairly established.




Thursday 2nd July
Day 11 of Refurb: plenty more beams have appeared in the booth over the last couple of days, and there are now visible signs of walls in the control room!




Monday 6th July
Day 15 of Refurb: one half of the new sliding door has been fitted in the control room, and there's more wall to look at too. The booth has also moved on over the weekend...




Wednesday 8th July
Day 17 of Refurb: there are of course plenty of ladders lying around, so we thought it was time to take some aerial shots...




Thursday 9th July
Day 18 of Refurb: the new lights in the booth are creating an alluring red glow, and the booth and ledge are serving as useful perches to capture some great new angles of the control room...




Monday 13th July
Day 22 of Refurb: Things are moving at a pace. Over the weekend the plasterers have been in and have done a fine job...




Tuesday 14th July
Day 23 of Refurb: Electricity's the word today. Some light and plug sockets have appeared, and a brand new spiffing air con unit. Cool is the key...




Wednesday 15th July
Day 24 of Refurb: The control room has new lights, new paint, and it's all looking pretty sparkly. There's a nice coat of paint on the outside of the booth as well...




Thursday 16th July
Day 25 of Refurb: The 25th day is a biggie. We've moved onto the next stage of the control room floor, and carved up some beams to erect a new-look wall running the length of the studio. They'll sleep well tonight. Oh yes, and the lights have also been installed in the booth. Paint and dust everywhere causing mass coughing. Either that or swine flu.




Friday 17th July
Day 26 of Refurb: The floor looks considerably different everyday day now. Watch it sparkle in the lights! The new long wall is now complete after a huge effort from the guys yesterday, and they've installed lights in the booth.




Monday 20th July
Day 29 of Refurb: Door-Day. And we have two kinds - sliding, and standard, both are big, soundproof, and look pretty heavy. They appear in the control room and booth. Painting has begun on the large walls too.




Wednesday 22nd July
Day 31 of Refurb: Well isn't the control room starting to look rather tasty ? Panels and fabric are now here, and being mounted. We've also got the carpenters building the steps which will lead up and down between the two levels. Lastly we've thrown in a photo below from the booth looking diagonally across the studio.




Thursday 23rd July
Day 32 of Refurb: At the end of today there were more panels on the ceiling of the control room. I'm told they'll need straightening tomorrow. And it seems with so much going on we missed the addition of the new lights in the main live space earlier this week, which replace the aged strip lights .




Monday 27th July
On walking through the entrance we can take in the delights of a large brand new door now hanging on its hinges! We're shifting things around to create space for the pool-blue paint coating the floor, so the booth is a temporary storage cupboard! Things are beginning to take their positions in the control room too, such as the console and newly-mounted flatscreen.








Tuesday 28th July
Fresh wet blue paint is covering the live room floor again today, so shoes are strictly restricted to the control room where we take our snaps from behind glass. There's plenty going on in there too however, with the construction of racks and so on...






Wednesday 29th July
The last patch of paint is drying in the live room, so we tread carefully. Through in the blissfully air-conditioned control room Rhys and Matt continued work on the racks.




Thursday 30th July
THE FINAL DAY!! Holy moley. So the racks are getting there thanks to the hard work of Rhys and Matt. We've also started uncovering other bits and pieces including the desk. They haven't seen light for over a month. Joe was having a wail attaching handles to the steps. Mickey and other Joe too were having a hoot in the booth with some panels, and Frodo braved some serious height and got to the ceiling with a pot of white paint.






... stay tuned for daily updates...